by Casey, Ryan
She remembered seeing him walk into that house.
Remembered standing there for a while and him not stepping out of it.
And it only being later on when she’d finally bit the bullet and trusted her gut and called the police. Told them she had a bad feeling. That something terrible was going to happen at that address.
An intuition she couldn’t rationally explain.
She remembered seeing the headlines. The double murder of a woman and child. A revenge killing for the girlfriend of her brother being locked away.
And she remembered the guilt she’d felt. The guilt that would haunt her forever.
She could’ve done more.
She could’ve acted.
The guilt drove her out of law and into new pursuits.
So many lives were changed in that instant.
She felt the pain around her neck tighten for just a moment, and then she collapsed to the ground.
Seth stood over her. She could see him smiling at her. That smug smile, that malicious grin, one she was so familiar with.
“What do you want with me?” she gasped.
Seth laughed. Shook his head. “Funny thing to say to your brother who you haven’t seen in three years.”
“Seth—”
“Shush,” he said. “Now’s not the time for talking. But I’m going to need you to stop wriggling.”
Aoife clambered onto her knees. Stood up. Stared right into his eyes. “Well, that’s not going to happen.”
Seth sighed. “Shame, sis. Shame. I really didn’t want to have to do this.”
Aoife frowned. “What—”
And then she felt a punch.
A heavy punch right across her face.
And in an instant, she fell to the ground again.
Tasted blood in her mouth.
Right in the back of her throat.
She looked around. Looked up into the blurry haze above, where her brother stood over her.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s nothing personal.”
And then he pulled back his foot, buried it into her face, and everything went black.
Chapter Forty-Three
One moment, Max was in the darkness.
The next, he saw light.
He was driving home. Driving home from work. He felt younger. More sprightly. More optimistic. More… happy.
And it felt strange. Because he’d been here. He’d been here before. Only the last few times he’d been here, he was concerned. He was worried. He was terrified.
Because he knew exactly what trauma he was heading towards.
He knew he was going to find something terrible back at his house.
But right now… he didn’t have that feeling.
He drove up to his drive. Pulled onto it. He got out, and he stood in front of the front door.
And right away, he noticed what was different about this to the other times he’d been here.
He saw the light in the kitchen.
And he saw someone walking around in there.
A momentary sense of dread. Someone was in the house. Someone was in the house, and they were going to hurt Kathryn. They were going to hurt David.
He rushed to the door, put the key in the lock, and turned it.
Stepped inside, hurried into the kitchen.
And right away, he saw her.
She was glowing. Glowing in a way that looked angelic.
He looked around for a sign that she was in danger. A sign that she was hurt. A sign that she was in pain.
But the more he looked, the more he didn’t find any of those signs.
Because she was okay.
Kathryn stood before him.
His wife stood before him.
Dark hair.
Bright blue eyes.
Beaming smile.
“Hello, Max. What took you so long?”
Max stood there before her, and he felt this deep, overwhelming sense of sadness. The overwhelming sense of grief. Because he knew he wasn’t really here. He knew Kathryn wasn’t really here.
But it looked so real. It felt so real. Crystal clear as day.
“Why don’t you sit down?” she asked. “Look like you’ve had a long day.”
He looked around, over towards David’s room. He could see light coming from that room. And he still felt a sense of fear. He still felt a sense of dread. Because he’d been here before, and he’d been here so many times, enough times to know that good things did not await.
“David,” he said.
“David’s okay,” Kathryn said. “He’s just playing on his Xbox.”
“But…”
“He’s okay,” Kathryn said, planting a hand on Max’s arm. “He’s okay, Max. Trust me.”
He turned around and looked at Kathryn, and once again, he felt that sadness. Because on the one hand, it felt so nice to feel her touch against his skin. It lit up every inch of his body with flames of happiness, joy, love.
But on the other hand… it was so long since he’d last felt this way.
And it made him realise even more how much he missed it.
How much he craved it.
How much he craved her.
How much he craved the life he’d lost.
He sat down, trusting his wife. And she sat down right before him. Right in front of him.
Sat there and smiled at him.
“This is weird, isn’t it?” she said.
“What… what is this?”
Kathryn reached for his hand again. “And once again, he felt like fireworks were exploding inside him when she touched him.
“It’s the place where you remember,” she said.
“Remember what?”
“Never to give up on people.”
He heard those words, and again, he tasted a sickliness in his mouth. Felt the guilt inside. Because he had given up on people. He felt it overwhelm him in an instant. And it was painful. It hurt. A lot.
He’d turned his back on everyone.
Because he was so afraid of what bonding with people might bring.
What connecting with people might bring.
But maybe that was the wrong way.
Maybe that was the wrong approach all along.
“I’ve tried,” Max said.
“And I believe you. I’ve seen it. But… but Max, you need to learn to forgive yourself.”
“How can I forgive myself?”
“Because it wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
He heard those words, and against all his instincts, he did something he hadn’t done in a long time.
He cried.
Kathryn wrapped her arms around him.
“You did what you thought was right at the moment.”
“I could’ve fought for him—”
“And Seth would’ve taken his life anyway, and you would still have blamed yourself. You didn’t do this, Max. You didn’t do any of this. None of this is on you. But you have a choice now. You have a choice.”
He moved his head away. Looked into Kathryn’s bright blue eyes. The whole scene around her was glowing, angelic.
“What choice?”
“You can come with David and me, and you can give up. Or you can try again. You can try again, and you can join us when you’re ready. When you’re truly ready. Only you know what that entails.”
In an instant, instinctively, Max knew his answer. “Then I’ll join you and David. I’m—I’m ready.”
Kathryn’s face turned. A look of… was it disappointment?
“Are you sure you are ready?”
“I’ve been ready since the day you went away.”
“But are you truly ready? Or is there something you’d like to do, still? Something you’d like to… achieve?”
He went to open his mouth, and then he saw her. He saw Aoife right before him. He saw Seth dragging her away.
He felt his anger towards her. The sense that he’d been betrayed.
And then he heard what she’d
said.
That she was sorry.
That she didn’t know what he could’ve done.
That she wished she’d acted sooner.
He heard all these things, all these protestations, and then Aoife disappeared, and suddenly he was back with Kathryn again, and she was standing between two doors.
Both of them had light underneath.
Both of them were the same, dark wood.
But Max knew the choice he was faced with right away.
“You get to choose,” Kathryn said. “And it is your choice. It is truly your choice. But you go through the left door, and you join me and David. Or you go through the right, and you finish what deep down you know you still have to finish. What you have to achieve.”
He heard her words, and he cried. Because he didn’t want to leave her. She seemed so real, felt so real, and he didn’t want to leave her behind. Not again.
But then there was that other sense inside him.
The sense that there was unfinished business.
That there were things he still needed to attend to. Still needed to address.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he said.
Kathryn smiled. “You aren’t leaving me. And I’m not going anywhere. Neither is David. We’ll be here. Right here. For whenever you’re ready.”
Max walked up to the two doors.
He stood between them both.
He looked into Kathryn’s eyes, and then he leaned in, and he kissed her, and it felt like he was drifting away, right back to the first time they’d met on the beach.
“I’ll come back for you,” he said.
“And I won’t go anywhere. Neither will David.”
He took a deep breath. Nodded. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Max. So much.”
He turned away from her.
Turned towards the door ahead of him.
The door back to his life.
He looked at Kathryn one last time and saw her smiling.
“Go on,” she said. “Go do what you need to do.”
He nodded.
Took a deep breath.
And then, before he could change his mind, he stepped through the door into the light.
* * *
Max opened his eyes.
Chapter Forty-Four
Max opened his eyes, and right away, he knew what he needed to do.
It was light in his house. Sunlight peeking in through the windows. The air was cold, and he was shivering like mad. But for some reason, it didn’t bother him. He didn’t care.
Because what mattered was what he had to do.
He turned around and felt a sharp pain, right along the right side of his torso.
He looked down. Saw blood still trickling from the wound on his side. His mouth was dry. He felt sick. He knew he must’ve passed out, but he wasn’t sure for how long.
Just that there was still time.
There was still a chance.
He heard panting.
Looked around.
Saw the dog, Rex, staring at him and wagging his tail.
Instinctively, Max wanted to tell him to go away. Because that dog didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Not with his track record.
But then he heard that voice as just noise in his mind.
And he heard Kathryn’s words.
Felt her hand against him.
Finish what you know you have to finish. We’re not going anywhere.
He looked at Rex, took a deep breath, and he sighed.
“Alright, lad?”
Rex wandered over to him. He nudged his head against his hand, which he weirdly kind of liked and appreciated.
“Good lad. Good lad. Alright, now. Give me some space. Need to figure out how we’re gonna go about this.”
He knew it was going to be painful standing up. But really, he had no choice. He wasn’t lying on the floor of his lounge and accepting his fate. He was getting the hell up, and he was sorting his wound out.
Then, he could think about the next step.
He gritted his teeth. Pulled himself to his feet, using the back of his sofa to support himself. He felt dizzy. Lightheaded. Weak.
He felt that urge to return to the dream, to the vision.
To return to the room Kathryn had given him the opportunity to join her in.
And then he pushed that thought aside.
He looked around the room. Looked over towards his kitchen, where he’d have plenty of supplies gathered.
He staggered over there, in pain, wincing with every step. Fully aware that he might just collapse at any moment, especially with how dizzy he felt.
But he gritted his teeth and walked over there anyway, Rex by his side at all times, shadowing him in every moment.
And as much as Max didn’t want to admit it, he liked the company.
It made him feel like he wasn’t alone here.
Even though that in itself made him feel somewhat vulnerable.
He ignored that vulnerability and walked into the kitchen area. He searched the shelves for supplies he knew he had. Supplies he could help. Blood trickling onto the floor all the time as he clutched his side, applying pressure to the wound.
He scavenged his way through the kitchen, then down into the cellar under his house, until he found some alcohol to clean the wound. Some stitches to stop it bleeding. He had all sorts of medical shit down here. Enough stuff to make a bloody intravenous drip if he needed to. Not that he ever bloody would need to.
He bandaged himself up. It might not be ideal. It probably wouldn’t help. And he was an infection risk.
But he was in a far, far better position than he was before, and that was something.
He stood there. Rex by his side, staring up at him. He felt a little shaky. A little weak. And in a lot of pain.
But he knew what he had to do.
He knew exactly what he had to do.
He grabbed a hunting rifle.
He walked over to the door to his house.
Looked outside and took a deep breath of the crisp January air.
Looked at the footprints where Seth had walked.
Where he’d taken Aoife.
And then he took another deep breath and tightened his fists.
“Come on, lad,” he said to Rex. “Let’s go get Aoife back.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Seth stared across the cabin at Aoife, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about his long-lost sister.
He’d never liked her all that much. But then he supposed some would say he’d never liked anyone all that much. Other than Sandy, anyway. Something different about her. Ever since he first met her, he always sensed they were similar. That they were cut from the same cloth. That they understood each other.
He wondered where she would be now if she hadn’t taken her life in prison. He wondered where the pair of them would be now. If they’d be living some kind of ordinary life. A life Seth never envisaged or fancied before he met her, but a life that did seem growingly appealing the more he’d got to know her.
He sighed. He didn’t want to think about the life he could’ve had. The life that was taken away from him.
He could only think about the people who’d taken everything away from him.
One of those being Max.
He looked over his shoulder, away from the derelict little cabin he’d found. Through the cracked, grimy window. Max was far behind. He’d be bleeding out right now. Dying slowly and alone on the floor of his home.
And as much as Seth wanted to be there to witness his every struggle… there was a part of him that was happy that he’d subjected him to the loneliness to die.
A part of him that knew that’s exactly the way Max wouldn’t want to go out.
Just that dog beside him.
A dog that would do a runner for it if it had any sense.
He heard a groan and turned around.
Aoife was awake. Squinting. She had a big red bump on her head. He had her tied to a st
ool.
“What…” she said, looking around, disoriented. Looking around this dark wood cabin. Mould and moss everywhere. The smell of damp pervasive and strong. “Where am…”
She saw Seth, and her eyes widened.
That fear.
That same look of fear she’d had in her eyes when they were kids. When he’d chase her with a knife. Or when he’d push her down the stairs but hold on to her, tormenting her.
Maybe he did like Aoife, after all.
Just not for the reasons you probably should like your sister.
“Seth,” she said, blood trickling down her chin. He could tell she was trying to do her strong voice, but he could also tell she was afraid. She struggled, pulled against the ties around her wrists, around her ankles. “Let me the hell out of here. Right this second.”
Seth smirked. Shook his head. “Never learned, did you, sis? When did I ever just let you out of anything?”
“This isn’t a game.”
“You’re too right. It’s not a game. It’s very, very serious business.”
“I don’t know what you want, but you aren’t going to get it from me.”
“You still don’t see it, do you?” Seth said, shaking his head. “All this time, and you still don’t get it.”
“If this is about what happened three years ago, then I’m not sorry. Not one bit. My only regret is that I didn’t ring the police earlier.”
“But you didn’t, did you? And that’s on you. And now your new little boyfriend knows exactly what you are. And that’s what he’ll die knowing. That someone else had a chance to help him. That they hesitated. And that they betrayed him.”
“You are a piece of shit,” Aoife spat. “You’re a piece of shit, and you’re a sad excuse of a brother. Dad always knew—”
“Dad knew jack shit,” Seth spat. “He always favoured you. His little princess.”
“That’s because he knew what you were.”
Seth smiled. “And what am I, Aoife?”
He saw his sister staring back at him. And he didn’t like the defiance in her eyes.
He stood up.
Walked over to her.
“What am I?”
“You’re a monster.”
He chuckled. Shook his head. “That’s exactly what Dad said, you know? The last thing he said to me, in fact.”
